Have you ever been to the doctor and been told you need to follow a certain plan to feel better or need to complete a medical test or screening, but later realize you are not quite sure what the doctor instructed you to do? It is not always easy to remember everything we are told to do during a doctor’s visit. Now imagine English is not your first language or you are worried about paying for additional tests. There are so many factors that can interfere with our ability to get the health care we need.
Through our program, the Georgia Colon Cancer Prevention Project, we help screen underserved Georgians for colorectal cancer by offering free stool-based screening kits along with patient and provider education to our partner health clinics. By eliminating the cost of testing and increasing understanding of the importance of screening, we have been able to screen more Georgians for colorectal cancer. However, not everyone who is given a test completes it. We want to change that! We want to expand our current program to offer patient navigation to help more people complete their screening kits. In other words, we want to offer a helping hand by having a patient navigator assist people to complete their screening kits whether they need extra help understanding the instructions, gentle reminders or postage to mail their completed kits to the clinic.
At UHRU we understand that we can all use a little extra help especially when it comes to our health!
Will you help us add patient navigators to our program to ensure more underserved Georgians are screened for colorectal cancer?
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